790GX built-in DDR2 64MB - BIOSTAR TA790GX A2+ OC report

[windwithme]

BIOSTAR TA790GX A2+








2 X PCI-E X16(CorssFiieX X8+X8)
2 X PCI-E X1
2 X PCI
Realtek RTL8111C,Realtek ALC888


6 X SATAII(SB750)
1 X Floppy
Power/Reset


4 X DIMM DDRII,533/667/800,Phenom up to 1066
1 X IDE
24PIN




IO
D-SUB/DVI/HDMI


DDR2 64MB IC

[windwithme]

BIOS


CPU


CPU Over Voltage +0.012~0.787V
Memory Over Voltage 1.9~2.6V
Chipest Over Voltage 1.2~1.5V
HT Over Voltage 1.2~1.5V


DRAM




GPU


32~512MB






Advanced Clock Calibration for Phenom OC

[Newblar]

what sb? what will the DDR2 64mb do to ocing results
for some reason i wanna step on that cat thing.... sorry

[windwithme]

CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 5400+/Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition
MB: BIOSTAR TA790GX A2+
DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator TWIN2X2048-8888C4DF
VGA: GAINWARD HD4850 + MSI 4850 CrossFire
HD: Seagate 7200.10 320GB
POWER: POWER:Corsair HX620W Modular Power Supply
Cooler: Thermaltake BigTyp VP/JETART Nano Diamond/Lubic


TSeries OVERCLOCK 3


Hardware Monitor


BIOS Update


GPU HD3300
VGA 650/1066

3DMARK2003


3DMARK2005


3DMARK2006


Chipest 1.4V,HD3300 OC 933/1066
3DMARK2003


3DMARK2005

[windwithme]

3DMARK2006


Need For Speed Carbon
1280x1024

HD3300 650/1066


HD3300 933/1066


Crysis Benchmark

HD3300 650/1066


HD3300 933/1066



GAINWARD HD4850 + MSI 4850 CrossFire
625/993Mhz

3DMARK2003


3DMARK2005


3DMARK2006


Need For Speed Carbon
1600X1200

HD4850 CrossFire 625/993


Crysis Benchmark

HD4850 CrossFire 625/993

[Morais]

Great review as aways dude, thanks for posting

[doompc]

4 phase VRM... I smell burnt mosfet

[windwithme]

DRAM
DD2 1066 CL5 5-5-15 2.0V
SP2004 Blend


AMD Athlon64 X2 5400+ Black Edition
438X7=>3066Mhz



BIOSTAR TA790GX A2+
Performance ★★★★★★★★☆☆
Components ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Layout design ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Cost/ performance ratio ★★★★★★★★☆☆

BIOSTAR TA790GX A2+ about 100 usd

BIOSTAR TA790GX3 A2+,on board 128MB DDR3
about 130 usd


BIOSTAR TA790GX XE,on board 128MB DDR3
about 100 usd


Thanks

[Nedjo]

nice looking mobos and my only object would be lack of MOSFET heatspreader, especially in situation where it was obviously planned, since there are mounting holes on PCB... also other manufacturers are using 4+1 PWM configuration, and it looks like Biostar is using only 4-phase.

I like the possibility for IGP to use only sideport memory, it would be nice to see the impact on performance on 128MB DDR3 equipped models...

Oh and, great reviews windwithme!

[Frodin]

Great review!
In the picture of your setup, the topmost 4850 does not have external power connected while the bottom card does, is it powered entirely through the board's PCI-E slot?

[windwithme]

Great review!
In the picture of your setup, the topmost 4850 does not have external power connected while the bottom card does, is it powered entirely through the board's PCI-E slot?

I forgot installed the electric wire of power when I took photos, but I did in test .

[Daveburt714]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread guys....

I got kind of bored today, MicroCenter had this board for $99 and I had a little extra cash.

I killed my MSI DKA790GX Plat., so this left me without a GX board and I just couldn't resist....

There is no cooling on the FETS, so I bought an 8 pack of Zalman video ram coolers to put on them and they actually fit quite nicely (took 4 to cover all the FETs) it's not alot, but I'm running it on a bench so I stuck an 80cm right on top of them.

I've never had a Biostar board before, but Polygon over at Rebels Haven seems to put alot of work into bios for it... I had all the parts except a Board so I thought I'd try to push my pathetic 9850BE to the Max.

If something dies, so be it....

Here's a few pics of my wimpy mods (all clickable):







I just got done installing Vista 32 on the machine and already OC'd to 2.9 on the CPU (everything seems fine)...

windwithme: Any suggestions? Best Bios, tricks or tips?
The same goes for anyone else who may be using this board..

One problem I had on initial build... Post kept giving me a wierd error "SPD error 23 & 25 unreadable", I assumed this was related to the EPP profile of my OCZ Reapers. I can't remember the exact thing in Bios I had to turn off, but I basically told it to ignore MEM errors and everything is working fine @ 1066..

I'll post a little more on my experiences later....

[Daveburt714]

Well... That was quick!!

The Board/CPU is probably fine, but my trusty CoolMax 500w PSU popped, it even smoked a little...

I knew it was really weak (Think I paid $29 for it a couple years ago), but I didn't expect it to die at 1.45 Vcore.

On the bright side, it primed my 9850 @ 3.177 for about 5 minutes without a Prime failure. Thats better than that chip has done in the past, seems like a decent low budget board...

Guess I need to get a new PSU...

[Rammsteiner]

New toys

keep us updated, Im looking around for a nice alternative of my current board, but I fail at it so

[villa1n]

I just bought this board today at the egg along with some other goodies, they had toxic 4870 on special too, building a christmas present hehe. So the mosfets get really hot on this thing? Would be wise for me to pick up some heat spreaders for them? i have a 9950 be going into, hoping to get a 3 - 3.1 stable on air with this board. Think that is possible? The psu wont go on my, its a 620W PC power and cooling. Also Windwithme, those benchs, was the cpu stable at 1.280 cpuz voltage at 3.1, if so that would be most excellent Cheers.

mosfet coolers

was thinking these might work.. ?

[Rammsteiner]

Check this out, nice alternative as well

[villa1n]

Check this out, nice alternative as well

Ohh very nice, I can get them here too at the same place.mosfet heat spreaders

Think it will make more of a difference than the other spreaders?

[Daveburt714]

Just an update for those who may be interested..

The good news is, the board and CPU both survived, only the cheap PSU died... I didn't have alot of extra cash so I bought a Xion 630w just to play with ($50), it got me back up and running (didn't want to tear my main rig apart!).

This has been a pretty decent toy, and it seems to OC this wimpy 9850be pretty well, just got the new PSU today....

The BIOS on this board is WAY different from any other board I've had. Theres no adjustment for IMC v's, it has a limited P-State option, adjusting the CPU VID seems to set NB VID to the same voltage. If you want to give a little more juice to the CPU core you need to use the CPU offset voltage.

It's different, but not necessarily bad. I'm actually catching on to it's quirks pretty quickly..

Here are a few odd things I've noticed:

1) AMD Power Monitor doesn't show NB(IMC) voltage.
2) CPUID HWMonitor doesn't show Core Temps correctly on the TMPIN0 list, but it does show proper temps on the cores.
3) AOD's options are pretty weak, the Asus 79-T offers alot more info and adjustments.
4) I'm having some weird IGP video blanking problems, but it never crashes (I'll give the chipset a little more v's when I reboot).

All in All, I kinda like this board... I've got it running this 9850be @ 3.0 (apparently) stable after only a few hours of playing with it, not too shaby considering this chips history...

[villa1n]

Just an update for those who may be interested..

The good news is, the board and CPU both survived, only the cheap PSU died... I didn't have alot of extra cash so I bought a Xion 630w just to play with ($50), it got me back up and running (didn't want to tear my main rig apart!).

This has been a pretty decent toy, and it seems to OC this wimpy 9850be pretty well, just got the new PSU today....

The BIOS on this board is WAY different from any other board I've had. Theres no adjustment for IMC v's, it has a limited P-State option, adjusting the CPU VID seems to set NB VID to the same voltage. If you want to give a little more juice to the CPU core you need to use the CPU offset voltage.

It's different, but not necessarily bad. I'm actually catching on to it's quirks pretty quickly..

Here are a few odd things I've noticed:

1) AMD Power Monitor doesn't show NB(IMC) voltage.
2) CPUID HWMonitor doesn't show Core Temps correctly on the TMPIN0 list, but it does show proper temps on the cores.
3) AOD's options are pretty weak, the Asus 79-T offers alot more info and adjustments.
4) I'm having some weird IGP video blanking problems, but it never crashes (I'll give the chipset a little more v's when I reboot).

All in All, I kinda like this board... I've got it running this 9850be @ 3.0 (apparently) stable after only a few hours of playing with it, not too shaby considering this chips history...

Well this board is arriving from the egg monday, although i have an OCZ 700W modular psu for it, saphire 4870 toxic, 4gb of mushkin ddr1000 redline, couple wd500gb sata3g, and a 9850 thats already here, batch : 0829epmw , dunno how those clock, but looking to hit 3.1ghz 24/7 with a xigmatek s1283 hdt..

So from your post, seems like AOD is working well, or isnt? I also bought the thermalright mosfet cooler for it as well. Couple questions, i ve pre-empted and gone to biostars site. Downloaded several drivers, i noticed they had one specifically for the hdmi..but i believe it was to enable sound via hdmi. ARe you running the newest bios, i noticed one in there talking about screen blanks that your describing and it is a fix for it. What kind of Volts to the cpu are you pushing, what ram timings etc.. hehe a little breakdown if you have the time to list it out, just so i can get a feel for the board, I havent played with AMD's for a while, since my fx 57

[doompc]

nice looking mobos and my only object would be lack of MOSFET heatspreader, especially in situation where it was obviously planned, since there are mounting holes on PCB... also other manufacturers are using 4+1 PWM configuration, and it looks like Biostar is using only 4-phase.

I like the possibility for IGP to use only sideport memory, it would be nice to see the impact on performance on 128MB DDR3 equipped models...

Oh and, great reviews windwithme!

Nedjo, the SP Memory if very slow, it only helps a little:

That was on the Jetway HA07-Ultra, with 128MB DDR3 1333 SP.
Games at 1024x768 (Crysis and GRID at Low setings, FEAR and TrackMania at Medium).

[Nedjo]

windwithme, what are the ASCI codes for those stars of yours ALT+???

[angelicavoc]

hi guyss...
biostar TA790GX A2+ or TA790GX XE just used 4phase, does is not to "heavy" to load phenom X4?

[davidletterboyz]

hi guyss...
biostar TA790GX A2+ or TA790GX XE just used 4phase, does is not to "heavy" to load phenom X4?

From what I have read, we need to put some heatsinks on those FETs if you are o/cing 125/140Watt CPU. The question is, even with heatsink, how many watts can it sustain for 24x7 full load (say WCG or F@H)?

From the specsheet, the FETs can sustain max Drain current up to 58A @ 25C.

[angelicavoc]

From what I have read, we need to put some heatsinks on those FETs if you are o/cing 125/140Watt CPU. The question is, even with heatsink, how many watts can it sustain for 24x7 full load (say WCG or F@H)?

From the specsheet, the FETs can sustain max Drain current up to 58A @ 25C.

i see, according to you, how much watt and temp to OCing deneb ? to use 24 / 7

[gOtVoltage]

i see, according to you, how much watt and temp to OCing deneb ? to use 24 / 7

Well use Ramsinks or a good PWM cooler..

Keep the Volts medium say 1.48v- 1.5v.. i fried mine with 1.69v and three hours of Prime with 3.45ghz 9950(140watt)..

If i didnt cook it so fast i woulda helped with Bios feed back to Polygon..

He's amazing with those Bioses. Thats how i succed @9950@ 3.55ghz and TA770. THe GX is funner and more reliable, Despite ME, i goofed when i Maxed the Volts and forgot to Cool my PWM's.

I may grab another down the Road , but am busy with the ASUS 79-T for now.